LANSING -- After a filibuster lasting more than an hour from a Democratic opponent, the Republican-controlled Senate narrowly approved bills Wednesday to enable state education and treasury officials to dissolve Buena Vista Schools and Inkster Public Schools.

Both bills passed the chamber by 20-18 votes, with Sen. Roger Kahn (R-Saginaw) among the Republicans crossing party lines to vote against the bills.

Kahn, whose district includes Buena Vista, explained his no vote on House Bill 4813 by saying the issue was "up close and personal" for him.

"I do know that I’m going to have to cast a vote here today," Kahn said from the Senate floor. "I have a vote to represent Michigan, a vote to represent Saginaw, a vote to represent Buena Vista and Buena Vista Township, and I think the most important constitutent, the children."

A final vote on House Bill 4813 came only after Sen. Bert Johnson (D-Detroit) delivered a filibuster timed by media members at more than an hour, in which he decried the legislation as being "flippant" and "irresponsible" and quoted heavily from reporting on school closings in Chicago in explaining his vote against the bills.

"If you take an axe and chop at the base of a tree, eventually it will topple," Johnson said early in his remarks. "That is what Gov. Snyder and legislative Republicans have done to education in this state."

Sen. Hoon-Yung Hopgood (D-Taylor), who proposed a number of amendments to the bill, also expressed concern with the haste legislators were making in debating the proposals. "This is a pretty complicated issue and we’re rushing it through the last two weeks of the session," Hopgood said in explaining his no vote.

Lawmakers adopted amendments to House Bill 4813 which explicitly limit the legislation's powers to Inkster and Buena Vista and which will obligate Superintendent of Public Instruction Mike Flanagan and State Treasurer Andy Dillon to consult with intermediate school districts before making the official decision to dissolve either district. Flanagan will also be required to take the number of special education students in the dissolving districts into account when assigning students to new districts under another amendment.

House Bill 4815 was adopted without amendment after a proposal that would have increased school foundation funding by 10 percent for all schools was defeated.

The amendments to House Bill 4813 will require the legislation to go back to the state House of Representatives for a concurrence vote, which could happen as soon as Thursday. Both bills were heavily debated in the House last week before being approved along party lines.